TITLE:
Literature Review on Network Design Problems in Closed Loop and Reverse Supply Chains
AUTHORS:
Muthusamy Aravendan, Ramasamy Panneerselvam
KEYWORDS:
Supply Chain, Network Design, Closed-Loop, Reverse Logistics, Models, Heuristics, Algorithms
JOURNAL NAME:
Intelligent Information Management,
Vol.6 No.3,
May
12,
2014
ABSTRACT: The productivity of
an organization is very much affected by non-value adding activity like logistics,
which moves the resources from suppliers to factory, raw materials/semi-finished
items within the factory and finished goods from factory to customers via a
designated distribution channel called as forward logistics. In some cases,
parts of the products such as automobiles, computers, cameras, mobile phones,
washing machines, refrigerators, garments, footwear and empty glass bottles of
beverages, etc. will be brought back to the factories as a product recovery
strategy through reverse logistics network which is integrated in a sustainable
closed loop supply chain network. So, it is highly essential to optimize the
movement of the items in the reverse logistics network. This paper gives a
comprehensive review of literature of the design of networks for the reverse
logistics as well as for the reverse logistics coupled with forward logistics.
The contributions of the researchers are classified into nine categories based
on the methods used to design the logistics network.